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<title>I Hold With Those Who Favor Fire by DaintyDuck_99</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29519205">I Hold With Those Who Favor Fire</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaintyDuck_99/pseuds/DaintyDuck_99'>DaintyDuck_99</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexual Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms), Boys Kissing, Companion Piece, Concerts, Country Singer Reggie, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pansexual Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Peterpatter, Pining, Strangers to Lovers, Sunset Curve (Julie and The Phantoms)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 16:40:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,209</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29519205</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaintyDuck_99/pseuds/DaintyDuck_99</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Reggie likes to pretend that he doesn’t believe in fate, because it’s existence would imply that some sort of deity out there hates him. </p>
<p>When he stumbles into Luke Patterson’s toilet stall at an award show, though, the only occupied one in a garishly bright bathroom, it’s like even the marbled blue slabs are mocking him. His malevolent god might as well have slammed a neon sign over his head that reads GOTCHA. </p>
<p>This is a companion piece to Force of Nature by goodluckgettingtosleep! Check that one out first (especially to avoid spoilers).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alex Mercer &amp; Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Luke Patterson/Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms), Reggie Peters &amp; Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Hold With Those Who Favor Fire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodluckgettingtosleep/gifts">goodluckgettingtosleep</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29247897">Force of Nature</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodluckgettingtosleep/pseuds/goodluckgettingtosleep">goodluckgettingtosleep</a>.
        </li>

    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Reggie likes to pretend that he doesn’t believe in fate, because it’s existence would imply that some sort of deity out there hates him. </p>
<p>When he stumbles into Luke Patterson’s toilet stall, though, the only occupied one in a garishly bright bathroom, it’s like even the marbled blue slabs are mocking him. His malevolent god might as well have slammed a neon sign over his head that reads GOTCHA. </p>
<p>It’s unfair, really, just how striking Luke looks in the harsh light. A tousled mop of brown hair laps against the strong lines of his face in waves. The sleeveless suit he’s sporting should look ridiculous, but everything about it emphasizes the fit form of his body, even as he lounges on the world’s ugliest blue toilet. </p>
<p>His eyes wander up and down Reggie’s frame with the grace of a lazy river, swirling green with flecks of blue-gray and amber. Reggie’s face floods with color—<em> a sex flush</em>, his traitorous mind suggests, having plucked the phrase from some stupid novel he can hardly remember otherwise. </p>
<p>He isn’t officially screwed until he accepts the punk singer’s joint. </p>
<p>After all, Luke didn’t seem to recognize him, and Reggie could’ve abandoned him there with an apology and a loose end that was bound to fuel a number of fantasies, the sheer potential of what could’ve happened, safely confined to the realm of Reggie’s imagination. </p>
<p>The fantasies come to him anyway, though he doesn’t tell Luke about them until much later. </p>
<p>Reggie can’t help himself. He isn’t ready to run, not yet, not when he’s pulling good weed and the smoking charm of Luke Patterson into his lungs. Reggie is addicted before Luke ever captures his lips in a fiery kiss, and he’s powerless to stop it even though he should. </p>
<p>The wispy image of Kayla blows through the impending storm, but it’s only a tumbleweed, the tangled fuck-up of what once was, and she quickly dissolves in the downpour of Luke’s passion, hands flying over guitar strings and eyes smiling as they share a mic, magnetic.</p>
<p>It doesn’t end there, either. Luke exudes energy like a live wire all of the time, apparently, not just on stage, and Reggie wants to coil that warmth up and keep it close to his chest for a little while longer, despite the burning risk of permanent scars.</p>
<p>He looks so at home under the fairy lights on the rooftop, the fey king of LA himself, as if this intimate space Reggie has carved out was made specifically for him. Luke is both ethereal and still largely a mystery, and this is dangerous, but that’s what Reggie gets for stepping into the fairy ring. </p>
<p>They exchange softer kisses here, lips and hands fluttering with the gentle caresses of a butterfly’s wings. It’s the kindest way anyone has ever touched him, regarded him, and maybe it is at least a little bit magical. </p>
<p>Luke keeps calling him <em> Reginald</em>, too, tongue curling around the liquid consonants until they melt into new and secret melodies, a serenade, and it’s sinful, frankly. Reggie suspects that he gave him too much power the moment he told him his true name. </p>
<p>When he wakes up doused in Luke and the morning sun, it’s like coming out of a thousand year slumber. </p>
<p>The warm light reveals red glints in Luke’s hair, hints of his fire. The reminder throbs painfully where the burn has set in, and it’s guilt that Reggie tastes this time as Luke drowsily presses their lips together. </p>
<p>His admission about Jamaica is honest, but it’s not the one he should be making. Saying that he’s scared and that he’s sorry—they’re closer, but he can’t begin to unravel the truth, not in the face of Luke’s intensity and the vibrancy of the California sun. </p>
<p>So Reggie withdraws from his first mistake.</p>
<p>He’s good at running without actually going anywhere, a ghost, the shell of a person. Luke makes Reggie feel alive, but it’s all a lie, an illusion. Reggie has been numb for too long to give anyone the love they deserve.</p>
<p>It’s awful, he knows that, but it’s always been easier to run from his problems, from his father’s fists and his mother’s barbed tongue, from the morose and wilting atmosphere of Kayla’s hospital bed and later, Kayla herself. </p>
<p>Reggie is perpetually in transit, allowing his problems to pile up for his future self while he simply tries to survive. He’s not so numb, now, but he deserves the pain for seizing Luke’s flames and briefly making everyone’s lives hell. </p>
<p>When Reggie accidentally sends Luke <em> September Night</em>, he comes undone, flayed, nothing but a raw nerve, and he fully retreats. He reads every single email that Luke sends him after that, even though each word is a shard in all of the relationships Reggie is about to shatter. </p>
<p>Everything erupts after Willie introduces Kayla at his party. It’s yet another item on the list of shitty things Reggie’s done—handing his best friend the emotional equivalent of a grenade.  </p>
<p>He deserves Luke’s wrath, absolute hellfire, but the lack of any flames at all is almost worse, leaving Reggie to drown in an icy lake of his own making. Luke is still kind enough to throw him a life preserver, the most practical advice he’s gotten in years. </p>
<p>Even the way Luke kisses Alex is a kindness, a quick cover that makes him look brash and rude when he had every right to strip Reggie of his dignity in the court of public opinion. </p>
<p>Reggie’s new therapist tells him that he internalizes everything, which is why he usually has trouble feeling or saying anything. </p>
<p>He self-sacrifices too much, apparently, until he simply shuts down. Reggie doesn’t want to believe it at first—how could he be overly selfless, especially in the wake of the destruction he’s caused? Trauma responses are complicated, though, and so are people.</p>
<p>Armed with psychology and an outsider’s clearer perspective, he finally releases Kayla, and himself, from the prison of their long-dead relationship. She’s unmoored, but he stomps on the guilt and remembers that, in time, they both might bloom again. He already feels freer. </p>
<p>Reggie tries to tell Willie that he’s on the right track, and that he doesn’t want to bother Luke or Alex, but Willie turns his therapist’s words against him by pointing out that he’s sacrificing himself again, and it’s not like Reggie knows they don’t want him around unless he asks. </p>
<p>He doesn’t exactly get the chance the next time he sees Luke, because the other man is sprawled on the floor, wearing absurdly cute pink sweatpants and <em> that shirt </em> with Reggie’s face on it, nursing what’s probably a concussion before “hello” can even leave Reggie’s lips. </p>
<p>A tendril of hope sprouts somewhere in his ribs, perilously close to his heart. </p>
<p>It’s immediately trampled when Luke tells him to stay away from him, but he doesn’t tell Reggie to leave, so he allows the feeling to remain. </p>
<p>It’s a fragile thing, but ever since he’s started to let himself thaw, it feels—nice, to slowly regain the touch of Luke’s warmth. </p>
<p><em> From what I’ve tasted of desire </em>— </p>
<p>Maybe Reggie does believe in fate, but he believes in Luke Patterson's fire even more.  </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title Credit and Partial Inspiration: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice">Fire and Ice</a> by Robert Frost :) </p>
<p>This story was otherwise absolutely inspired by goodluckgettingtosleep and her story! I wish to write as much as they do, and I'm very glad to call them a friend :)</p>
<p>You can find me on tumblr <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/daintyduck99">@daintyduck99!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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